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  • Rights: Joseph Michael, made with the support of the Latin America Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence
    Published 14 December 2022 Referencing Hub media
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    Joseph Michael is a visual artist and photographer based in Auckland, New Zealand. Ninawá Inu Huni Kui is President of the Federation of Huni Kui People in Brazil. In this video, they discuss the need for humans to connect with nature and how art and science can help make these connections.

    Ninawá Inu Huni Kui’s comments have been translated from Portuguese to English.

    Questions for discussion

    • Joseph mentions that, when you reconnect with nature, you value it more. Do you think this is true? Why or why not?
    • Do you think art is an important part of conservation1?
    • What other art or communication engages you in conservation issues?

    Transcript

    Joseph Michael

    Visual artist and photographer

    Our lives are increasingly dominated by these urban environments. We’re surrounded by concrete, we’re surrounded by cities, and when you go out and have that experience of going into the forest – reconnecting with nature – you start to value it more.

    Yeah, what’s my role as an artist? It’s always idea driven, right. If I start with the concept, start with what I want to achieve, then we apply whatever technology is possible or necessary to achieve that.

    How to get large-scale versions of nature in front of your eyes – there’s modes of doing that with projection, with ghost screens. Ideally, it’s a holographic style environment.

    Basically, we’re trying to scan maybe the essence of the tree. One of the cool things you can do with the technology, once we scan it, is we can take you up into the canopy2, and then the other thing we’re experimenting with is how to sort of understand and map the root system.

    Augmented reality3 to me was the most pertinent way to connect one to one with that, and augmented reality, in particular, as opposed to VR4 – because I think VR tends to be quite insular – and I like the shared experience, so the ability to be able to have this one-to-one scale holographic style installation – even though it’s not a true holographic – but be able to see other people’s interactions with the forest, and then you’re connecting with other people in this space.

    Ninawá Inu Huni Kui

    President of the Federation of Huni Kui People

    For us, trees are not simply wood and leaf. There is a context, a story that comes from the beginning of our existence with these teachings being passed on from generation to generation.

    Joseph Michael

    The thing that drives me as an artist is the ability to learn more, and the integration of scientists within my work has been a really massive leap in the evolution of my work and get that exchange of understanding. As an artist, I like to sort of take those scientific tools and put a visual lens on them. And we started with lidar5 and some multi-spectrum scans, and it was actually through this, the changes that we’ve had on COVID, that we’ve moved right into photogrammetry6, and that’s sort of where we’ve ended up.

    I think that’s the important thing as an artist – we’re really good at the why questions. We can sort of start presenting some of these ideas. Hopefully, we can form a connection and start to, you know, have more discussion around it.

    Raised Up Sky is about connecting to something greater than yourself.

    Ninawá Inu Huni Kui

    It helps because they are people who somehow become “multipliers” of information. And it’s something that the planet needs today. Do a new human re-education. Make people feel inside their hearts once again.

    1. conservation: The protection, preservation and careful management of a species, habitat, artifact or taonga.
    2. canopy: In ecology, the canopy is one of the uppermost levels of a forest.
    3. augmented reality: A technology that adds digital elements to a live view of the real world.
    4. virtual reality: A digitally generated environment that a person can interact with using specialised equipment such as a virtual reality headset.
    5. lidar: An acronym for ‘light detection and ranging’ or ‘laser imaging, detection and ranging’. Lidar devices use infrared laser light to generate 3D representations.
    6. photogrammetry: The use of aerial photography and other technologies to obtain reliable information about physical objects.
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      conservation

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    2. The protection, preservation and careful management of a species, habitat, artifact or taonga.

      virtual reality

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    4. A digitally generated environment that a person can interact with using specialised equipment such as a virtual reality headset.

      canopy

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    6. In ecology, the canopy is one of the uppermost levels of a forest.

      lidar

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    8. An acronym for ‘light detection and ranging’ or ‘laser imaging, detection and ranging’. Lidar devices use infrared laser light to generate 3D representations.

      augmented reality

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    10. A technology that adds digital elements to a live view of the real world.

      photogrammetry

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    12. The use of aerial photography and other technologies to obtain reliable information about physical objects.